Ghetto Fabulous, Sorta...

This has been a seriously amusing week. I'll start with an update on Sleep Watch '08. Wyatt is now definitely a child who sleeps through the night. He now sleeps anywhere from 8-10 hours in a block. (The pic is actually of Wyatt after he fell aseep while playing, but it fit the sleep theme, so go with it, okay?) My husband has been telling people about how he suddenly has his wife back. It's true. I didn't even realize just how much my energy and mood was still being affected by the daily broken sleep until I started getting normal, full nights again. All of a sudden, things that have felt overwhelming and difficult since Wyatt was born (like cooking meals that actually require recipes and running more than one errand at a time with the baby in tow) seem totally doable. Sleep. Dude, it's a powerful thing.

While we're on the subject of my adorable little monster, I'll switch to a topic that's less about celebration and more about imperfection. The term is "original sin" when a baby starts to show his flawed humanity - when flashes of rebellion, manipulation and general pissed-off-ness start to replace basic survival reasons to cry. Wyatt turned 3 months old on Tuesday, and he definitely turned that corner. He gets impatient, even when he knows he's about to be fed, and screams to get his way faster. It's no longer "I'm hungry; feed me mama." It's "Speed it up, woman! The prince does not wait for his meal!" My son has learned how to be a brat. Tsk tsk. To his credit, he's also learned other social behaviors like smiling and laughing. And there's a lot more of that than the bratty fits, so I'm not suggesting I have an evil child. I'm just saying, you know, he's learning way too early that there's a system to be worked...

Onward to other things: I got new 20" Denali wheels and a new Denali grill for my Yukon! Needless to say, I don't actually have the Denali model. But the Yukon I have is the fully loaded, nicest non-Denali you can buy. Pretty much, the only differences are the wheels and the grill. Do you see where I'm going here? I basically just upgraded my vehicle for a fraction of the cost of buying it that way, without getting all flashy and ghetto. (No offense to the ghetto-fabulous owners of spinners and super-bling rhinestone grills, but that wasn't quite the look I was going for in the mommy-mobile.) It looks pretty stinkin' good, I think. I haven't gotten a picture of the new grill yet, so I'll have to get back to ya on that, but you can see the new wheels, which are pretty awesome. I also realize that a good percentage of the people I know read this blog could care less about the diameter of wheels, the shine of rims, or the line of a grill on a car. But I've always been a car nut, so I have to be true to my motor-trend reading heritage... :)

I also got paid on one of my latest freelance jobs. There's nothing like a check in your mailbox to brighten up your week. So basically, all of this is just to say that it's been a good week. Whaaat, whaaat.

Sleep Watch '08

We're currently in the midst of Sleep Watch '08. The star of our saga? Mr. Wyatt William Kuhns. Yep, we have ourselves a little experiment going here in the Kuhns household. We're testing out a baby sleep remedy recommended by countless aunts, grandmothers and friends, but not recommended by BabyCenter.com and other official baby care resources. Oh, the controversy... Two nights ago, we tried giving Wyatt a bottle at bedtime with a little rice cereal in the mix. I misread the measuring spoon and only gave him a teaspoon of the good stuff instead of a tablespoon. Wyatt gave us an 8 hour block. Success! Last night, I rectified the measuring spoon fiasco and used a tablespoon instead. (Drum roll please...) Wyatt gave us a 9 hour stretch! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, our son went from 10pm to 7am between feedings. Ah, sweet slumber! So, that's 2 nights in a row that the controversial rice cereal has worked its secret magic. Take that, oh baby elite... My little dude likes it old school.

This past weekend, the munchkin went on a couple road trips. Saturday, we spent some quality time in Visalia. It was 108 degrees. Whoop whoop, Summertime. Thank you, Jesus, for air conditioning. We got to see lots of family and friends, which was a treat. Wyatt also met (in his sleep) my Papa, his great-grandpa who's in the hospital. We love you, Papa. Then, on Sunday, we went down to LA. Ryan was showing our sailboat to potential buyers (please buy that sucker, oh maritime enthusiasts of Marina del Rey) and I got to hang out with T and Riley. We also went down to Torrance to visit the Ludwig clan, which was a welcome surprise! Wyatt was the most excited about Riley, I think. He did, after all, get his first kiss from a girl.

Here, as usual, are a few more pics of my handsome kid. He'll be 3 months old on July 1st, but he's about the size of Riley who is more than twice his age! (7 months old.) Yeah, my husband and I both come from some hardy stock...

Ditching the Little Dude

Sooooo.... I haven't really done that much blogging lately. I've been stumped. I'm sure you all found my diatribe on Wyatt's napping schedule fascinating and everything, but... :)

I took my first trip away from the little dude this past weekend. It was a girls' weekend in Palm Springs. I got a little teary-eyed when I left because Wyatt was asleep so I couldn't give him a bunch of obsessive mommy-kisses on my way out the door. Once we got to the hotel, though (which was actually a resort in Rancho Mirage) I was perfectly content to get some quality time away from the squirt. I got to experience pre-baby things like 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep for two days in row (although I woke up in the morning with boobs about to burst...) and having three bloody maries by the pool without having to worry about the dangers of buzzed-mommying. T and I also got to bond with our pumping parties in the hotel room. It was one of the benefits of not being the only nursing mother in attendance. :) The down side was actually wearing a bathing suit in public only 2 months post-baby and the still-itching sunburn I got on my back even with "waterproof" 45 SPF sunscreen. But hey, those were minor negatives to an over-all much appreciated positive experience. And boy did I appreciate my son (who I swear grew visibly over the 2 days I was gone) when I returned, not to mention his angel of a father for taking care of him solo while I was gone.

Okay. Time to feed our little giant. Here's a couple pics of Double Dub from today:

Adventures in Napping

The napping phenomenon is an interesting part of the routine in this newly established Kuhns Family. My son is not a good sleeper. He comes by it honestly. I've dealt with bouts of insomnia and the curse of being a very light sleeper my whole life. I was hoping not to pass that on, what with those dominant Ryan genes and all, but it seems my son is about as skilled at sleeping as I am. I also hate naps. For starters, falling asleep in the middle of the day is a challenge for me, no matter how exhausted I am. And then, if I happen to overcome that hurdle, I tend to wake up grumpy and groggy - basically ruined for the rest of the day - which pretty much ruins the point of taking a nap in the first place. I'm afraid Wyatt may have a similar reaction to naps.

This morning's nap is chalk full of great examples of Wyatt at his finest. It begins, inevitably, with the slow transition from happy baby to fussy baby. This signals Mommy that he's tired, and needs a nap. And so it begins. I take him into his room, make sure he has a clean diaper, and cuddle him for just a bit to get him calm before placing him sweetly in his crib. He fusses, whines, and generally expresses his disapproval. He hates naps, after all. He grumbles and cries as his eyes get smaller and smaller. He sucks violently on his bink to make himself feel better about his terrible bad luck about being in his crib. His eyes are slits. He stares through his slits at Mommy until his lids are so heavy, he has no more strength to hold them open. And then, even in sleep, he whimpers for about 5 minutes, still annoyed at the evil nap. 30 minutes go by as he sleeps quietly, and then, out of his room, the crying begins again. Mommy is back in his room to soothe him, knowing that if the light crying gets worked up into wailing, he will not fall asleep again. He has spit out his bink and rolled his head to the side, on top of it. He's uncomfortable sleeping on a bink, naturally, and he's ticked. I put the bink back into his mouth, which he attacks like a piece of meat. He wimpers, staring at me with wide eyes, daring me to make him keep napping. I hold the bink in his mouth with one finger while I stroke his cheek lightly and stare him down. We hold a staring contest for about 5 minutes as his eyes get smaller. His "blink" is sleep, and he's out again to complete the second 30 minutes of his evil nap. (This dramatization was edited to keep it intertesting. In all honesty, there were actually about 4 trips back and forth to calm him before he napped, but that would have been overkill...) The beast wakes up hungry. He is MAD that he isn't being fed immediately upon waking. He hollers until he is given sustenance. After he eats, he smiles and gurgles and talks to mommy. He plays and he grins. Happy as can be. No beast in sight...until it's time for his next nap, of course...

Here's our 10 week-old Wyatt, post-nap and post-meal of course, testing out his new big-boy toy. He's trying to decide what he thinks about this shocking new thing. :) He's still too little to touch the ground and jump on his own, so we've added a phone book under his feet to help, which is working out nicely.

The Green in My Grass

When I was pregnant, I mused from time to time about what I missed. Sushi. Alcohol. Sleeping on my stomach. Sitting in booths without bruising my stomach... You get the idea. Today, I can have sushi whenever I want. Ryan and I have taken advantage of that gift wholeheartedly. I've sampled from my various cravings of martinis, mojitos and margaritas... (evidently, I have a thing for the M drinks?) I sit in booths quite easily. Sadly, I still can't sleep on my stomach, thanks to the boob-food supply, but I can sleep on my back without my arms going numb, so that's a gift in and of itself.

Now for my 'grass is always greener' moment. I miss a few things about life pre-baby. Pedicures. Leisurely shopping experiences and other uncomplicated errands. Uninterrupted sleep.

Now, you'd think I could get a pedicure with a baby in tow, right? But think about the logistics. You're in a massage chair thingy with your feet in water or being man-handled by the pedi lady. Your child is sitting in his car seat/carrier (which he hates) and he decides to start crying to let you know it. Do you A) Stop everything, regain the use of your feet, and go to pick him up, B) let him scream and disturb the relaxing pedis of the rest of the women there, or C) request that one of the technicians pick up your child for you and hand him to you, and also his bink, and also his burp cloth, and pray that's enough to get him quiet again? Needless to say, you do NOT want to see my toes right now.

Then there's shopping. I'm in that in-between stage where I'm still too fat to fit into my pre-baby clothes, but my maternity clothes are too big and fit weird now that I don't have a rock-hard spherical belly. I need a couple cheap get-me-through-this-lame-stage outfits and a one-piece swimsuit, because 2 months out, my mid-section is FAR from ready for prime time. But there's a very small window of time when my son is neither fussy nor hungry. And sadly, that small window is not even remotely long enough to engage in true shopping. It's just enough time to make a mad dash to Target to pick up emergency diapers. And even that is a far from enjoyable experience these days. The up-side is that the only money I spend is on stuff I need for Wyatt. No leisurely oops-I-accidently-spent-$200-at-Target moments. Those are by far a thing of the past.

And lastly, sleep. I have to laugh that I ever complained about lack of sleep when I was pregnant. I thought getting up every few hours to pee and doing a lot of tossing and turning throughout the night, was "lack of sleep". No, lack of sleep is having a baby who doesn't sleep through the night yet. Getting up to pee is nothing compared to getting up to feed (20-30 min), change (5 min), and soothe (alternating intervals of 5 - 15 min after he's supposedly gone back to bed) a baby. That half hour to hour break in your sleep cycle, a couple times a night... that's lack of sleep.

Would I change it? Would I give him back and say "no thanks, life was 10 time easier before we had a baby"? No, of course not. It was 10 times easier, but I know and love Wyatt intensely now. He's a real person, a member of our family, and I wouldn't trade him for all the sleep and free time in the world. But that doesn't mean I don't miss the simplicity of life before. I miss it like crazy. I wish I would have soaked it up a little more - appreciated the gift of simplicity, of self. I wish I could express to people who aren't to this stage yet, how important it is to enjoy that! People told me, of course, but I guess I didn't really let it sink in.

As always, here are some pics of our now 90th percentile (in both height and weight), 2 month-old boy. (Yes, he'll be playing football for my USC Trojans. Obviously.)

These blue eyes will someday get me both in and out of trouble.

The elusive smile. I do it all the time, but mom and dad have a hard time catching it with the camera! This is sort of a half smile. It's a start.

No one told me I'd be getting close to outgrowing my swing at a mere 2 months old. I guess that's what being in the 90th percentile does to ya.

We'll call this "napping". Um, yeah...

Might As Well Face It; I'm Addicted to Love.

I have a new addiction. I'm addicted to seeing my kid smile. Every day, he gets a little more free with his happy faces, and for every time I see that toothless grin, I need even more. I know it's cheesy, but it's true. It's a weird feeling. Sometimes I'll resort to just about anything to see his lips curl up, even for just a second. High pitched baby talk? Singing silly songs? Making funny faces? Taking a little longer to change his diaper because sometimes all he needs for a grin is to be naked? Yep, I've done them all and more. :)

Conversely, I have an intense allergy to his crying. The big lipped pout prior to the wail is actually pretty stinking cute, but the actual crying, when he gets really riled up, makes me feel ill. It's not the annoyance of general baby crying that I always had pre-child (although I still have that reaction sometimes). It's like an ache in the pit of my stomach... a sad heart. And sadly, sometimes it's unavoidable. My boy, for instance, hates his crib. He has to be on the verge of passing out in order to go to his crib to sleep without a fight. But given its obvious role in his future, I can't have that. He isn't going to magically start liking the crib if I don't teach him to work through his frustration. And so, I've been hearing a lot of crying lately. It sucks, because we finally got him over his massive fussiness, and now we're having to do battle with the crib, invoking crying once again. It's tough being a mommy. :) I guess as long as I get my regular fix of goofy grins, I can handle the other stuff!

Okay, now you can laugh at me. I just attempted to talk tough. Then, I went on a walk with the boy before publishing this post. He fell asleep on the walk with his thumb in his mouth. Instead of pulling him out and putting him in his crib when I got home, I wheeled his stroller right into his room next to his crib and left him in it to sleep. Why? That pesky cry allergy, of course. Here's a couple pictures of him waking up (that's the hungry cry) from his stroller nap:

Wyatt is 8 1/2 weeks old today. I guess we move away from weeks and start talking months now, right? Well, he'll be 2 months old on Sunday. We've all come a long way... :)

Babe Wisdom

I have an endorsement to make. As anyone who's been reading my blog knows, our sweet little darling Wyatt can be a bit of a handful in the fussiness department. My s-i-l babysat him last week and confirmed that he's challenging. :) Which was a relief to Ryan and I, because she's an experienced mother of 2, which means maybe we're not just baby-wimps. Well, we've gone around in circles trying to figure out why our child gets so weepy all the time. And then we started reading a book that our friends recommended. It's called On Becoming Baby Wise. And we realized what the problem was. Wyatt fights sleep. He doesn't generally just fall naturally to sleep when he's tired. And so, by the end of the day, if he's napped at all, they've been cat naps. So he's overly tired and cranky. And those strange intervals of fussiness throughout the day? Yeah...those are the times he needed to be put down for a nap. A real nap. Not just a quick doze in the swing before he eats. We've started following the loose schedule set up in Baby Wise, and have discovered a much happier baby boy.

Here's what's funny: The information in Baby Wise is really the same stuff my friend Talitha, who's a doula, has been telling me all along. I recognize the loose scheduling (which is a welcome and logical balance between the hyper-scheduling camp and the attachment parenting philosophy, both of which are based on flawed logic and extremism... I'm sure I'll piss someone off by saying that...) as the same recommendations she's given me. When she advised me last time though, I was still in the midst of baby blues and general unfamiliarity with my child, so I didn't quite understand how to implement it, and I wasn't really completely capable of understanding it. :)

So, anyway, kudos to Brian and Lesa for recommending the book to us, and to Talitha for giving us the same advice even without a book! We now have a child who naps, who isn't so psycho in the evenings and a hour after every meal (turns out, it had nothing to do with his tummy), and who is already sleeping a little longer each night. I'm starting to feel more confident about the fact that my child may be sleeping all the way through the night in a few weeks. (Knock on wood.)

Our almost 7 week old:

Truly, Madly, Deeply

I am truly, madly, deeply in love with my son. Even as we speak, he's squeaking and talking to the fish on his bouncy seat while he hiccups and gives me the occasional toothless grin. This intense feeling of adoration is amazing. And I'll admit it; it's new. I wish I could tell you I felt this way the day he was born. That I, like so many women on TV and in books, had felt a magical connection to my child the moment I saw him. But like many moms (who've felt ashamed of themselves for feeling the way so many other women feel, but don't admit), I had to get to know my son first. When Wyatt was born, I was still in pain, exhausted, and scared. I could appreciate his cuteness and wowed by his very existence, but he was still a stranger to me. I had to figure him out, discover his goodness and be charmed by his personality the same way I had to get to know my husband before I fell in love with him. In the beginning, I was angry at all the moms who'd gone before me and hadn't warned me... I'm not angry anymore, but I refuse to repeat their mistakes.

But tomorrow, Wyatt William Kuhns will be 6 weeks old. And I can't imagine life without him. Maybe it's because he responds to me now. Maybe it's because he's awake more now, so I'm actually seeing parts of his personality. Maybe it's because I'm getting a little more sleep now that Wyatt has a 4-5 hour stretch at night, and my husband is so active in making sure I get some rest. Maybe it's because my son cries less now, and seems to have more logical reasons when he does. I'm sure it's all of the above. And I'm also sure that needing those things to finally get to a place where I melt in my child's presence doesn't make me an inferior mother. It just makes me an honest one, who's getting better abd better at her new job every day.

Here are some more pics of my strapping 12 pound child:

Fun with Colic

I still don't know if I can officially call this colic, but when your baby cries for at least half of his waking hours (minus while he eats), that's a lot of frickin' crying. And if colic is even worse, I commend all parents of colicky babies who have survived without sending their babies to infant boarding school.

Ryan and I finally finished watching 'The Happiest Baby on the Block'. We'd already learned the 5 S's, but it was nice to get a refresher course. We've found that one of the only ways to soothe our son is to swaddle him as tightly as we can (although our little Houdini can eventually get out of anything...), slip a bink in his mouth, and put him in his swing. Right now, he's staring at me wide-eyed, but he is not wailing. That, my friends, is a miracle these days. A few minutes ago, you would have thought he was being water-boarded. "Fess up, Wyatt. Where did you hide your other sock, and who are you working with to vaporize all the pacifiers?" Fun, fun!

I was planning to take a walk today, but I can't find a happy medium between the straight-jacket in the swing and the screeching howls of my tortured son elsewhere. And so, I'm taking a written walk down Blogger Lane instead. It's just as refreshing, but doesn't do as much for dropping the baby weight...

In another topic entirely, I have to bring up politics. It's only fitting, because I pretty much watch the news 24/7 these days to keep my brain from turning to mush. As usual, I won't be endorsing anyone. But I do find one thing funny about campaigns in general. Themes. Right now, the focus is on the democrats, of course. Clinton vs. Obama. (I'm sure this is news to all of you.) The two themes are "Change" and "Experience". I've been entertained by how passionate the voters interviewed are about these slogans. You'd think it was the first time any candidate had based a campaign on experience or change... And yet, as far as I can remember, those have been the rally cries in just about every election in history. I'm assuming McCain will take up where Clinton leaves off with the "experience" theme. (I'm convinced Obama will be the democratic nominee... but if Hillary pulls off the super delegate coup, I guess McCain will find a way to adopt a theme of "change" instead.) The truth is: they're really just buzz words. Experience can only get a politician so far, and they're only capable of so much change. In the end, no matter who wins, he/she will be considerably more impotent than they let on. But for now, enjoy the cries of "experience" and "change". You won't hear these themes again for a long time (or at least until the next election).

I guess I'm as fussy about the semantics of politics as my son is about life as a 5 week old. :)

Good Bye, April Showers.

It's May now. Bring on those flowers! Here's a weird thought: The only month Wyatt had ever experienced until now was April. And now he's experiencing May. :) He'll be 5 weeks old tomorrow. For you and me, 5 weeks don't necessarily amount to much. But this kid just keeps changing. (I realize this isn't news to anyone, but it's a whole new ball game when suddenly it's your own kid who's changing fast!) Here are a few of the changes:

First, this kid weighs almost 11 pounds now. Just to give you some perspective, that means he's gained like 75% of his original body weight in 5 weeks. (I didn't actually do very specific math, so I could be off by a bit, but you get the idea.) He's gone from wearing newborn size diapers to Size 1. I think he'll be in size 2 before long. Luckily, he's still wearing his 0-3 month size clothes. (Well, except the Gerber onesies, which are made for midgets and fit him for about a day.) This is good because we're getting use out of the smaller sizes, but I'm also looking forward to getting to change his wardrobe. :) I'm living vicariously through him, since I have to drop all my baby weight before I'll have lots of clothing options again... SIGH.

Second, he likes toys. He's fascinated by things that jingle, swing, move, or play music. He looks us in the eye and follows our gaze, and he makes the cutest little noises. This probably doesn't sound like much, but you have to remember just how little newborn babies actually do. When he was born he pretty much just stared into space, slept, ate, pooped and cried. He certainly didn't play and he really didn't acknowledge the existence of other human beings. So suddenly our cute little blob is seeming more like a little person. :)

There is no third. I mean, I'm sure there are tons of things that have changed, but nothing else I feel like blogging about. That's tough on Americans. We like our information in 3's. :)

There's one other thing I totally have to write about. I found out that my husband is a diaper snob. We're a Huggies family. I totally thought Ryan would think that diapers are diapers. That he'd roll his eyes at the idea of paying more for a specific brand name. But having an awesome man who changes his share of the messy little numbers means he has an actual opinion based on actual experience! The cheapies aren't the same. They're more likely to leak and they don't get the mess away from Wyatt's skin as well, so they're more of a pain to change. Heck, even Pampers don't measure up. It's Huggies or the highway. Talk about a conversation I never imagined having... :)

Our chubby tough guy at 4 1/2 weeks old: